Nearly a dozen Americans were inside the consulate at the time, guarded by Libyan security. For nearly 20 minutes the Libyan guards exchanged fire with the attackers, who hurled a firebomb inside.

The militants burned down at least one building in the attack.

It's not clear yet how Stevens died, but the Associated Press quoted a Libyan doctor who said the ambassador died of asphyxiation, apparently from smoke. The doctor, Ziad Abu Zeid, told the AP he worked for 90 minutes to revive Stevens.

I guess it all depends on what you read.. it was reported some time ago that the AL-qaeda flag was flying in Benghazi so the already existing Anti-American sentiment (nevermind that we just "liberated" them) was just further fueled by the new video mocking Mohammad. I think the video in question might warrant it's own thread but the news bot has been behind on it.

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t was here at the courthouse in Benghazi where the first spark of the Libyan revolution ignited. It’s the symbolic seat of the revolution; post-Gaddafi Libya’s equivalent of Egypt’s Tahrir Square. And it was here, in the tumultuous months of civil war, that the ragtag rebel forces established their provisional government and primitive, yet effective, media center from which to tell foreign journalists about their “fight for freedom.”

But according to multiple eyewitnesses—myself included—one can now see both the Libyan rebel flag and the flag of al Qaeda fluttering atop Benghazi’s courthouse.

According to one Benghazi resident, Islamists driving brand-new SUVs and waving the black al Qaeda flag drive the city’s streets at night shouting, "Islamiya, Islamiya! No East, nor West," a reference to previous worries that the country would be bifurcated between Gaddafi opponents in the east and the pro-Gaddafi elements in the west.